Thursday, September 25, 2014

Cavaliers acquire Keith Bogans

 The Cleveland Cavaliers continue to add role players to bulk up the bench around the new Big 3 as the Cavaliers sent the three players (and their team friendly contracts) that they obtained from the Utah Jazz,along with forward Dwight Powell and two second round picks to the Boston Celtics.
The return? Keith Bogans,who will step in with three point shooting ability (35 % for his career) and underrated defensive skills.
Well,the Cavaliers also added two future second round picks that were originally the Sacramento Kings property,although those are "top 55 (yes,that is NOT a typo) protected".
That made me laugh more than you can know when you consider those picks have to be in the final five picks in the draft to receive them and makes them the definition of the term throw-in.

The facts of the three players going to Boston can be found on the link above,so I won't get into those too much,although I still would have liked to have found a spot for John Lucas III as a backup point guard at a cheap price and since it is likely that the Celtics will waive Lucas,I wouldn't be against the Cavaliers re-signing him at reasonable cost.
Boston did get a nice prospect in Stanford's Dwight Powell,who is now on his third team since June's draft and he should make their team.

Keith Bogans does bring the aforementioned skills to Cleveland,but he did only play in a handful of
games last season and is 34.
Still,even if he close to healthy,he brings even more veteran leadership and professionalism to the locker room,but he brings with him one other thing-A contract that is not guaranteed for this season and next season at a little over five million per.
Cleveland isn't going to have a ton of cap space anymore,so quiet deals like this are how they are going to continue to tinker with the roster.
Take Bogans and his five and half million for next offseason with Brendan Haywood's ten and a half million and suddenly Cleveland could turn two aging role players into a possible superstar addition at 16 million per year.
And the Cavaliers will still be able to get whatever they could out of the pair for this season on the court as well!

This deal could be the most underrated move that the Cavaliers have made other than the LeBron James signing and Kevin Love trade as it sets them up for a long term run over the next few years as a team that needed cap space stunningly will have it.
Whatever Keith Bogans brings on the floor might be overshadowed by what his cap space brings next summer and that might prove to be quite interesting...



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